The present invention relates to a device, such as a book, that is useful in stimulating a child""s desire to read and learn. More particularly, the present invention relates to a gear-driving device useful in teaching concepts concerning power transmission through the use of motors and gears. Most particularly, the present invention relates to a gear-driving device that allows the user to create an interlocking moving gear display integrally coordinated with subject matter in a book or on pages.
Devices for stimulating a child""s desire to read and learn are well known in the art. Books are especially useful in this regard. The market for children""s books is highly competitive. Publishers are constantly developing features for books that they believe children will find appealing. Some of these books use motors and gears to achieve their objectives.
Books of the aforementioned types take many forms. For instance, Kang, U.S. Pat. No. 6,244,922, teaches drive units, including gears, contained in a book-shaped housing that has a plurality of windows. In each window on the front of the book-shaped housing is a movable ornament, linked to the drive unit by a rod protruding through a slot in the housing. When driven by the rod attached to the drive unit, the ornament is able to move along a path dictated by its own particular sliding slot.
Blaustein, U.S. Pat. No. 5,988,684, teaches a book with movable toys, housed in hollows in the inner back cover, driven by a mechanism in the back cover, and visible through appropriately-shaped cut-outs in the back cover and in the book""s pages. Thus, the movable toys can be observed in the context of each page.
No prior art, however, teaches or suggests a book integrally equipped with a gear-driving device that allows a user to place a variety of gears on a variety of background pages. Further, no prior art teaches or suggests a device with gears that are separate toys placed into hubs on the pages and rotated when linked to the driving mechanism or gears that may be transferred from place to place on individual pages or from page to page.
In these ways, the present invention is a useful tool both for stimulating a child""s desire to read and learn and for hands-on teaching of concepts concerning power transmission through the use of motors and gears.
The present invention concerns a device having a gear-driving means that stimulates a child""s desire to read and learn and is useful in teaching concepts concerning power transmission through the use of motors and gears.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide a useful book or other device comprising a gear-driving apparatus that will enable the user to experiment with gears associated with words, representations, characters, objects or scenes depicted in a book or on pages.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a book and gear-driving device that will enable the user to create an interlocking moving gear display that coordinates with the subject matter on a particular page of the book.
It is a further object of this invention to allow a user to develop and/or express his/her imagination, creativity and thinking skills.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an outlet for such entertainment that is easy to use and relatively cost-efficient to manufacture.
These and other objectives will become evident to those skilled in the art from the specification. To these ends, one embodiment of the present invention comprises a front cover; a back cover; at least one page between the front and back covers; wherein at least one of the front cover, back cover or page are provided with a gear-driving device.
In certain preferred embodiments, the gear-driving device is provided on the back cover and is comprised of a tray; a mechanical box containing at least one motor (with a battery and compartment therefore, at least one switch and at least one power shaft); compartments for holding one or more gears and/or gear driven members. The compartments are preferably housed in a box with a hinged lid with a flap, which tucks into the edge of the tray to close it or other closing means known to those skilled in the art including, but not limited to, snap, Velcro(copyright) or magnetic closures. The lid opens and closes to allow access to the items housed. The lid and the book pages are provided with die-cut openings to enable the power shaft to penetrate the book through all the pages, from back cover to the first page and/or front cover or as many pages as may be desired.
When the book is opened to any page, an appropriate gear may be removed from a compartment and placed on the exposed power shaft. Additionally, the hubs of other gears or stacks of gears may be placed into hub wells cut into each page to create an interlocking moving gear display driven by the power shaft, which relates to the subject matter of the page in use.